An interview with Google's Head of Research

Posted at: Wednesday 12th September 2007 by Sarah Lewthwaite

We recently got the chance to chat to Dr Peter Norvig, Google's Head of Research about where the big G is headed - there's no interest in hardware apparently, but computer vision, face recognition and making sense of the narrative of search are all on the agenda

This agreeable but inscrutable response is Google and Dr Norvig’s signature. During a later question-and-answer session, Norvig handles other potentially difficult questions with apparent ease. Does Google feel threatened by the rise of resource based portals like Wikipedia? Will Google expand into this field? 'Wikipedia are good friends of ours. We supply them with a third of their traffic. Google has no ambitions in this area,' he replies deftly. So where do Google’s ambitions lie?

CPC: Regarding the future of education and the future of Google, what do you see as the big changes in the educational sphere as well as the personal sphere for how people relate to information?

Dr Norvig: So far we’ve taken an informal approach. We're a resource that is available. We know people are using Google all the time as an adjunct to their formal education and in their continuing education, and we want to make that better. I don’t know if it matters too much whether we think of it as ‘education’ or if we think of it just as ‘answering the question.’

I think there could be much better tools, we’re [Google] still kind of isolated in what we do. You give us a question and we give you an answer, That’s fine. But we’re really focused on either five second-type question, where you want something straight way, job done. Or the five minute: ‘I’m doing some research, give me some papers and I’ll read them.’ We don’t really support the five month or the five year queries, the project or life-long goal. In order to do that, people use a variety of tools. We write things down in various notebooks, it’s not integrated. So I think looking at that is interesting. It’s not education versus none-education, so much as looking at the time course. Is it a small little fact or is it something much larger that you’re learning?

CPC: So you’re interested in introducing a capability that has more of a narrative?

Dr Norvig: Yes. Trying to make sense of the results and put them together in a meaningful way. It’s also interesting to think about in terms of how results can be repackaged and published. We have some solutions with Blogger and Notebook amongst others, but I don’t think it’s integrated.

CPC: Finally, have you enjoyed the conference? How are you finding ALT-C?

Dr Norvig: This is all new to me. I wanted to come here because it’s an area that touches on what we do – to make some connections and get some materials to read. It’s fulfilled my expectations. I think it’s interesting how the ALT brought together this group, professors and IT teams all together, it’s unusual to see that. Quite a mix between the formal and theoretical.

With that, Dr Norvig, himself quite a mix between the practical and theoretical, returns to the conference to deliver his keynote speech.